Friday, 25 July 2014

Here today to bring you my take on Tim's July tag and this month I have dared to be different. I have made quite a few seahorse projects recently and so I decided to follow the techniques Tim showed us but using the lovely new Layered Bee rather than the Seahorse. You can see Tim's original and step by step HERE but this is my version.

Well I did say It was different! I think he is the Bees Knees! (thus the title of the post) and if you want to grab yourself a brew, I can take you through the make up of the elements.

Firstly I coloured a tag exactly how Tim explains in his tutorial, I just used different colours of paint and stains. I cut the bee and the honeycomb from card and a pair of wings from shrink plastic. I also ran a piece of thin acetate through the big shot with 2 die cut honeycombs to get the honeycomb imprint onto it and cut it to the shape I wanted

As Tim did with his seahorse, I coloured the bee with distress paint (mustard seed & black soot) I was a bit messy getting the paint on the wings but these were going to be cut off so it did not matter.

When the paint was thoroughly dry, I embossed the bee with the folder

Then using a piece of cut n dry and BS paint I carefully picked up the embossed areas

Then I decided to mask off the legs and paint them again so they were wet enough to hold the frosted Chrystal antiquities. I then heat set it with a heat tool

I gave the whole of the body part of the bee a coat of rock candy crackle paint

I gave my embossed wings a dab of stonewashed alcohol ink

Edged them with a permanent black marker and then stapled them together with my tiny attacher

Then attached them to my bee on the back.

The acetate honeycomb got a coat of butterscotch alcohol ink. I put it onto the white card just so you could see it on the photo better, and I liked the fact it showed the pattern of the ink up more so I decided to keep it that way. I glued it onto the white card and cut around it.

I painted the honeycomb with scattered straw distress paint and sprinkled it lightly with antique linen embossing powder (as Tim did with his sand dollar)

I ran around the edges with a distress pen and glued the honeycombs together

Next I mixed the 'sand' or in this case the beeswax and used my finger to poke it into a couple of the honeycomb gaps. I glued the honeycomb to the tag and mixed a little more of the sand mixture to add some detail and soften of the edges. I shaped my bee a little and used 3d pads to attach him to the tag.

Here are a few close up photo's (I know you like them!) to see the detail better. Here we see the detail of the wings and honeycomb centres

Crackled bee and textured legs

Exhibit No 07 for July of course stamped with potting soil archival onto distressed card stock.

Not forgetting my little atc for July. The Bee has been die-cut from white shrink plastic, coloured in and shrunk down (Carefully!) he is so sweet! you can also see sandy (waxy!) corners.
All the stamps used on the atc are from the classics no. 12 set. the honeycomb here was stamped using antique linen dp and had ep sprinkled over.

and of course could not let you go without your monthly view of the atc display very pink and yellow may I add, I might see if I can get a touch of blues & greens in there next month.

One last look at the tag

Thank you for your visit (if you are still with me that is!) hope you enjoyed the step by step
Mo x

Monday, 21 July 2014

Hope you are getting chance to enjoy some of the lovely weather we are enjoying.
Today I wanted to show you a card and gift I made for a very special person for her birthday last weekend (no prizes for guessing who it is, the initial gives the game away). This person loves Seahorses, and so I thought she would appreciate the Seahorse theme I followed throughout.

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The background for the card and the gift box was made using a weathered wood technique showcased by another special and very talented lady Jenny on the frilly & funkie blog a couple of weeks back click Here for her brilliant tutorial.

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I won't bore you with the make up of the seahorse on this post as the make up is the same as I used on my Get some Texture project which can be found Here

The initial had a little sprinkle of Vintage Photo embossing powder to rust it up, the sentiments were stamped onto shrink plastic and the little bottle had distress crackle painted on it, coloured with alcohol inks and filled with bedazzles.

I bought a little Seahorse necklace and decided to make a special gift box for it that sort of followed the theme. Again you can see Jenny's technique used here but this time the last stage with the Distress paint was done which gave it a completely different look. The ribbon was just dipped into stains on my craft mat, dried and stamped over with black archival. The little prawn rock was one of four I picked up at a car boot sale for 10p, it just suited the look of the box and held the ribbon in place.

On opening the box you can see my little gift, and you can also see that I did the inside as I did the card leaving the last paint effect off giving a much lighter contrasting look.

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You can see how the middle of the box lifts out. This was just the square that was cut out from the frame and paint added.

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This photo shows how I attached a little pocket to the back of the lift out card to house the chain

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And this shows the gift box empty

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I could not find any nice wrapping paper for the gifts which followed the theme, so, I decided to make my own with the Blueprints set using different colours of archival inks.

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I also made a gift bag to match

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Did you guess who the recipient was? of course it was my adopted big sis and best friend Anne. She was happy to let me show off her gifts, card and wrapping, and we both thought it would give some inspiration to have a go. I believe it was Jenny's birthday last weekend too, so happy birthday Jenny. Why not pop over to her tutorial and have a go at this lovely weathered wood technique. Anne also gave a run down of how to make a gift box like this earlier this year on This Post. My Gift box is made exactly the same way, but I just adjusted the measurements to fit the gift.

Saturday, 19 July 2014

I am back again! in good time for once for the latest challenge over at A Vintage Journey which this time is being hosted by Annie who is asking us to use our 'Dies and Distress' products. They are a Tim Holtz inspired challenge blog, however, it is all about Tim's style, so the dies you use do not have to be from Tim's Sizzix range. Check out their Travelling Instructions for more details. The challenge is sponsored by Country View Crafts and the challenge winner will receive a £10 gift voucher to be redeemed at their online store.

Well I don't know about you but I don't need any prompt at all to use any of the distress products or my dies so I got to work and put together this project which is using plenty of Tim's dies, distress products and of course techniques used by Tim himself. ﻿

I started by gathering together a few die-cuts I already had left over from other projects and a sheet of 8" x 8" paper from my stash. I cut a trellis die cut out of the centre as I already had in mind to use this just as a backing and wanted to make use of the bit that was going to be covered up. This backing paper was distressed on the edges and inked with Vintage photo. After the photo was taken I also added a die cut arrow, more of which you will see next.

I started with a die cut from corrugated cardboard using the pocket watch frame and centre dies and I used Versamark and Vintage photo distress embossing powder to give it a lovely rusty look. The hands are a die-cut arrow from the new Artful Arrows bigz die which was given the same treatment as above. This clock background is part of the Expedition ephemera pack and was simply glued to the back of the pocket watch. You get a glimpse of a small piece film strip ribbon which is just tucked in amongst the flowers. ﻿

The pocket watch chain is a piece of old broken jewellery and it has been connected to a ring fastener. It is glued into place at the top of the watch, but the chain itself falls freely. The Pink card with the script on it is just plain white cardstock cut down to size, distressed with Victorian Velvet distress ink and applicator and stamped with the Indigo Blu script stamp again in VV. The edges were distressed and inked like the backing paper.

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The feather is die-cut using the mini feather and inkwell movers and shapers set. It die cuts quite solid and I wanted to soften it up so I put more cuts into the feather and inked the edges to define the detail. I also shaped it a little, I am quite pleased with how this came out, it looks like a resin feather.

To the left of the feather you can see the on the edge doily distressed die-cut which has simply had the edges inked.

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The ivy below is die-cut from the Spring Greenery Decorative strip as is one of the larger leaves amongst the flowers. This die cut has been painted with peeled paint distress paint, and then I have given them a little detail with a pokey tool and coloured pencil before inking the edges and shaping a little. The little butterfly is one of four taken from a stamp on the attic treasures set. It has been stamped using black archival ink and coloured using Stormy Sky distress stain. I have also added a small cog in the centre of the hands.

This Photo shows two more die cuts, the trellis as you saw earlier was cut from the centre of the backing paper, and the Vintage lace decorative strip was used for the lacy edge below the special delivery label, again taken from the Expedition ephemera pack.

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Onto the lovely Dragonfly which was constructed using two die-cuts from Tim's lovely new Layered Dragonfly and embossing folder set. Just one was embossed and the other was left blank. They were both coloured using a a mix of distress stains on a craft mat, dried and then the wings were given a good coat of Rock Candy distress crackle. When this was dry, I made up a spray with Stormy Sky distress re-inker and spritzed lightly over the wings and part of the body so the blue went into the crackles. I dropped Shell Pink alcohol ink onto a dazzler gem, and when dry used my finger to dab a tiny bit of treasure gold onto the top to pick up the detail. the crackled dragonfly was glued directly over the other coloured one just on the body only so the wings would lift, and then the dazzler was added to the body.

Here is a close up of the wings which looks lovely with the stains picking up the detail of the crackle.

The dazzler on the body had shell pink alcohol ink dropped onto it and then I gave it a tickle of Treasure Gold to pick up the detail

. Most of the flowers are from the Flower Garland decorative strip which has also cut a couple of the leaves. I used different papers to get different effects. The carnation type flowers (bottom centre and top left) are dyed with distress stains and scrunched up tight, dried, opened out slightly and layered. The large daisy to the left is coloured core card inked on the edges and layered up, the large cream one in the centre is cut from a drinks can (this using the smallest flower on the steel tattered florals die) and painted with antique linen dp the pink centre is again core card. The other cream flower to the right is simply painted and inked. dp has been used on all the flower brad centres to match as they were all silver to begin with.

Another look at the finished project but framed in a deep frame as wall art

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There is still plenty of time to join in this fabulous challenge so why not give it a go.

Thank you as always for dropping by today and hope you like what you see.

Thursday, 17 July 2014

Thank you for dropping by today, I have my altered Burlap Panel to show you for the latest CC3C challenge, but firstly I would like to say a huge Thank you to everyone who visited and commented on my last project Missed the Bus. I was overwhelmed by the response by everyone who said they liked it and it got pinned on one of Tim's Pinterest boards too! wow! so proud. I did have a little help from my best friend Anneas she posted the project on her facebook page which let it be seen by some who may otherwise have missed it - Thank you Anne.

Back to Linda Ledbetters CC3 challenge 6. This time we are asked to put our own spin on the tutorial on page 37 which is an Altered Burlap Panel. I can't show you the technique involved as you need to buy Tim's fabulous book for that which you can purchase Here. The Funkie Junkie Boutique is back to sponsor Challenge 6, and owner Linda Coughlin is offering a fabulous $25 shopping spree to one very lucky winner.
A little different to my usual colour scheme, this little panel was named after one of my favourite comedy films Planes, Trains and Automobiles starring John Candy and Steve Martin, as they are the 3 forms of transport featured on this journey (albeit the automobile turned out to be a bus rather than a car).

The Red White & Blue Theme came from the colours of the French Flag as it was soon becoming apparent that our journey was to Grande Paris (Barn Door, Picket Fence and Chipped Sapphire). The panel was backed with Melange tissue and most of the tickets were taken from the Expedition ephemera pack.

A couple of cogs and spinner were added

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plus a wordband and chit chat stickers. The Eiffel Tower was stamped onto a journalling ticket and cut down to fit

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I wrapped a piece of eclectic elements fabric around a piece of card to give it strength before adding a buckle and an eyelet to secure it

I thought it looked a little like a luggage strap you would wrap around your suitcase when travelling

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so I wrapped it around the edges also and secured it with glue

The Hotel Mondia in Paris centre is the final destination lets hope the travellers have a lovely time.